Every day millions of consumers flock to the internet to keep current on the latest happenings worldwide. Since the internet is a vast portal of information, consumers have a plethora of information provider choices. These choices may include blogs, tweets, emails, websites, etc. Regardless of the venue in which the consumer chooses to consume this information, one common theme remains—the consumer wants trusted, up-to-date information on the topics that are relevant to him/her. Thus, consumers tend to gravitate towards websites that provide them with trusted, researched information regarding their topic. For example, if consumers want information on the forest fires in California, it is likely they would navigate to a trusted news website like Reuters.com instead of going to an online social tabloid website to consume this information.
In order to retain a consumer, the publisher needs to know what topics the consumer wants in a timely manner. Otherwise, the consumer may navigate away from the website. The increase and/or decrease of consumer navigation to a publisher's website can have a direct affect on the publisher's revenue stream. For example, if consumers are realizing that the information on publisher A's website is not up-to-date or relevant to the current events, they will choose to visit a different website for their information. In turn, advertisers that purchased space on the publisher A's website may choose not to renew their contracts because of lower consumer traffic numbers than expected. Thus, as consumer traffic decreases, more than likely so will the advertising revenue and overall publisher revenue. Therefore, a publisher needs to have the resources to recognize when a topic needs more or less coverage based on consumers' navigation. In addition, a publisher may want to know how its topic coverage compares to other unaffiliated websites.
Currently, a known approach to reporting the above mentioned information to a publisher includes reporting webpage/website consumption for a single, publisher-specific website. When website content is accessed, the website URL and a unique identifier for the consumer accessing the website are collected. This information is then gathered and analyzed to provide the publisher with an idea of what topics interest its consumers. For example, some systems can track the consumer's navigation through the publisher's website. The system could tell the publisher that consumer A is currently interested in a topic associated with or representing the Chilean mine disaster because consumer A has visited publisher's website every 30 minutes to see if there is an update on this topic. The known system can then gather that information along with information from other consumers to aggregate and report consumption information to the publisher about the publisher's website. However, there are severe disadvantages to the known approach.